Tokai
April 22, 2008, 04:38 PM
Except for couple wins in the last World Cup and 3 non-sequential win against India, Australia and Sri Lanka, our cricket had been wayward. If you look at how they play and what they do in the field, it make you wonder, what exactly are they doing? What is wrong with them? Why do they have to go after that ball 2 feet away from off stump? Why did he had to pool that ball when we are already 4 down? Why did he came down the track like that? Why, why and more why. Things that seems so obvious to fans, somewhere does not make sense to the players. It makes you wonder, what is the root cause of all these? I came up with my own explanation of this, which many of you might find absurd. Well, those of you need to explain why, with logic.
Without further ado, lets get down to business. To find out the reason, the first thing you need to do is to put yourself at the players' shoe. If you are a player of national team, what is your number one concern? Lets talk about batsmen here only. To score runs? To get paid enough? To be a celebrity? No, none of the above. The keywords being 'number one concern', it is to stay in the playing 11. Once you have that secured the rest are irrelevant. If you do not score runs, it does not matter if you still can keep playing, the money will come, and you are already celebrity.
Keeping that in mind, what do you do to stay in the playing 11? You look for example, consciously or subconsciously. You look to see what kept previous ones in the team and what threw them out. This is where the 3 important players come into play, namely Habibul Bashar, Alok Kapali and Rajin Saleh.
To start with, how do Habibul Bashar influence the play of today's cricketers? In test, when all other batsmen were struggling, the only shining star was Habibul Bashar. He scored more runs than anyone else, had more fifties and centuries and got praised the most. What did he do? He used to play hook and pull extensively. This set the psychology today. When no one is successful, if you want to be successful, you need to play a lot of hook and pull and play carefree. Now, clarify first why he was successful. In few words, no one knew much about his playing style nor did many cared. So, he was successful for a while. However, when people knew about his playing style, he was doomed and was never successful again. No one else can be successful following his path either. But somehow our batsmen do not understand that. Hence we see the irresponsible playing style among the current players.
Number two of the list is of course, Alok Kapali the highly talented wonder boy of Bangladesh cricket, or is he? Well, a huge number of people, including fans, media and selectors (I must add here that fans influence media and media influence selectors) thought he was. He was tagged as talented and was given permanent position in the team regardless of performance. Isn't that all today's players want? A permanent position in the team? And Alok example tells them that they need a talented tag to be able to achieve that feet. So, they try to follow Alok, be classy looking when you play shots, everything else is irrelevant. That explain why no one plays according to the team need these days, they are too busy proving themselves talented. And you know how to do that, play shots that are eye catching, getting out does not matter.
Now comes the 3rd example, Rajin Saleh, telling people what not to do. He is the only test grade material of the national team and in the current situation of the ODI a sheet anchor like him is indispensable. Still, we do not see him anywhere near the team. What does that tell the players? If you play test like the rest of the world do, you are not going to have a spot, if you play ODI sensibly, you are not going to have a spot. So, what do you do? Follow Habibul Bashar or Alok Kapali.
Without further ado, lets get down to business. To find out the reason, the first thing you need to do is to put yourself at the players' shoe. If you are a player of national team, what is your number one concern? Lets talk about batsmen here only. To score runs? To get paid enough? To be a celebrity? No, none of the above. The keywords being 'number one concern', it is to stay in the playing 11. Once you have that secured the rest are irrelevant. If you do not score runs, it does not matter if you still can keep playing, the money will come, and you are already celebrity.
Keeping that in mind, what do you do to stay in the playing 11? You look for example, consciously or subconsciously. You look to see what kept previous ones in the team and what threw them out. This is where the 3 important players come into play, namely Habibul Bashar, Alok Kapali and Rajin Saleh.
To start with, how do Habibul Bashar influence the play of today's cricketers? In test, when all other batsmen were struggling, the only shining star was Habibul Bashar. He scored more runs than anyone else, had more fifties and centuries and got praised the most. What did he do? He used to play hook and pull extensively. This set the psychology today. When no one is successful, if you want to be successful, you need to play a lot of hook and pull and play carefree. Now, clarify first why he was successful. In few words, no one knew much about his playing style nor did many cared. So, he was successful for a while. However, when people knew about his playing style, he was doomed and was never successful again. No one else can be successful following his path either. But somehow our batsmen do not understand that. Hence we see the irresponsible playing style among the current players.
Number two of the list is of course, Alok Kapali the highly talented wonder boy of Bangladesh cricket, or is he? Well, a huge number of people, including fans, media and selectors (I must add here that fans influence media and media influence selectors) thought he was. He was tagged as talented and was given permanent position in the team regardless of performance. Isn't that all today's players want? A permanent position in the team? And Alok example tells them that they need a talented tag to be able to achieve that feet. So, they try to follow Alok, be classy looking when you play shots, everything else is irrelevant. That explain why no one plays according to the team need these days, they are too busy proving themselves talented. And you know how to do that, play shots that are eye catching, getting out does not matter.
Now comes the 3rd example, Rajin Saleh, telling people what not to do. He is the only test grade material of the national team and in the current situation of the ODI a sheet anchor like him is indispensable. Still, we do not see him anywhere near the team. What does that tell the players? If you play test like the rest of the world do, you are not going to have a spot, if you play ODI sensibly, you are not going to have a spot. So, what do you do? Follow Habibul Bashar or Alok Kapali.